FIELD EDUCATION: Areas of Learning & Assignments
FIELD EDUCATION AREAS OF LEARNING
Direct Practice refers to that area of professional practice in which students work in
purposeful, face-to-face contact with identified client systems and with collateral persons and
organizations relevant to those particular client systems. Such collateral contact may involve
client advocacy within the field setting itself.
This area of learning enables students to develop and refine basic practice skills for effective
generalist practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. These
skills include observation, interviewing, relationship-building, oral and written communication,
documentation, conflict-management, advocacy, data collection and assessment, planning, and
contracting, intervention and monitoring, termination, and evaluation of practice effectiveness.
Students are enabled to practice with an appreciation for the positive value of diversity with
clients from various social, cultural, racial, religious, spiritual, class, and size systems. They are
enabled to empower at-risk and vulnerable populations as related to clients’ age, class, color,
culture, disability, ethnicity, family structure, gender, marital status, national origin, race,
religion, sex, and sexual orientation. Students are also enabled to contribute to the restoration,
maintenance, and enhancement of social functioning.
Service Impact refers to that area of professional practice where students contribute to
changes in agency policies and services and in broader social policies affecting the populations
they serve. This area also involves contributions to changes in organizational work cultures
affecting agency and interagency work groups and staff relationships.
This area of learning enables students to practice with increased understanding of the impact of
social problems on a variety of client systems, problems such as poverty, inadequate housing,
family breakdown, delinquency, mental illness, and discrimination. Students are enabled to
develop commitment to social justice, equality, and the elimination of the negative
consequences of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of oppression and
discrimination. They are enabled to gain firsthand knowledge and a greater understanding of
the network of social welfare services in the community, in terms of their operation, their
contribution to the maintenance and enhancement of social functioning, and the social forces
which affect their organization and operation. Finally, students are enabled to function as a
member of a team and gain an appreciation for the work of disciplines other than social work.
Professional Learning refers to the systematic study and documentation of professional
practice in which students develop and maintain ongoing responsibility and direction for the
planning, content, and focus of their learning and professional development.
This area of learning enables students to make appropriate use of social work supervision,
consultation, and research to enhance practice competence. Students are enabled to integrate
and apply the knowledge, values, and ethics derived from the foundation courses and other
content areas included in the social work curriculum. They are enabled to become aware of and
analyze their own value orientations and feelings about people and the problems they bring to
1
FIELD EDUCATION: Areas of Learning & Assignments
social service agencies, and to develop a professional stance in terms of identity and use of self.
Finally, students are enabled to understand and appropriately apply agency procedures, policies,
and personnel regulations.
FIELD EDUCATION LEARNING ASSIGNMENTS
The overall objectives of the field experience are achieved through the development of the
student’s professional capabilities by systematic study and documentation of specific learning
assignments within the areas of direct practice, service impact, and professional learning.
Direct practice assignments include work with individuals, families, groups, organization, and
communities as identified client systems, and with collateral persons and organizations. This
practice takes the form of work with client systems, including some experience with all phases
of practice from initial assessment to termination; and work with at-risk and vulnerable client
populations as related to clients’ age, class, color, culture, disability, ethnicity, family structure,
gender, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex, and sexual orientation.
Service impact assignments include collaboration in ongoing and ad hoc work groups, such as
agency and interagency teams, committees, staff meetings, and so on; work in intra-agency
groups around service duplication, gaps, or collaboration; open discussion of the impact of
agency and community policies, procedures and work cultures on clients, agency services, staff
relationships and students; grant-writing; development of needs assessment surveys or program
outcome measures; research around modification of agency policies, procedures, and services;
development of new services; legislative action; agency board attendance; community
education and outreach; and so on.
Professional learning includes collaboration with the field instructor regarding learning
assignments focused on the ongoing examination and assessment of student performance;
documentation of student performance through process recording, audio-visual taping, and/or
observation showing how students actually perform under certain conditions and how students
describe and assess their own practice; content-oriented documentation of student
performance showing how they use agency records of accountability, e.g., progress notes,
proposals, memos, reports, and so on; and meeting the learning objectives.
It is expected that professional learning will begin with the student’s orientation to the agency
and the development of a teaching-learning contract, and will continue throughout the field
experience. It is also expected that students be given some direct practice assignments by the
middle of the first semester of field and that additional assignments are made as they arise and
are deemed appropriate during the remainder of the field experience. Some service impact
assignments, such as staff meetings, team meetings or other types of client treatment planning
groups, are expected to be assigned during the first semester
2